Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  ‘Did you say that, sonny?’

  ‘Yas.’

  Now Porky groaned. ‘Well, for cryin’ out loud . . . and he’s as white as I am, nearly. What’re we goin’ ’o do with him now?’

  Pat yawned. ‘Forget about him till the mornin’. I’m going ’o bed. Go on, sonny . . . there’s a rug for you. Make yo’self comfortable on the floor.’

  The fact that Prindy had ideas of his own concerning his future was revealed as soon as it was evident from his would-be saviours’ breathing that he could escape them. With the rain drumming on the iron roof there was little need for caution. Still, he went with stealth, opened the fly-screen door, slipped out onto the bit of verandah, leapt out into the roaring night. There was a wobbly square of light in a window of Col Collings’s residence, a little distance away, enough to show the gleaming rails now that the lightning was gone. He picked his way carefully across the tracks. Up to the left was a largish luminescence that was the pub, and directly across the way a dim glow that would be the store, but nothing but blackness whence he was headed, evidently for Barbu’s. He reached the road, crossed it, ran to the blacker patch of blackness, halted streaming and breathless under the sagging verandah. The ground was awash. After a moment’s rest he emerged again, to slip through the gate to the rear, to seek shelter again under the complex of roofing connecting the jumble of shop, residence, and kitchen, and to stand staring at the big shed where the van was kept, evidently with sharp ears hearing significant sound there above the roar of the rain, and to have his astuteness rewarded after a moment with sight of a flicker of light.

  He went to the door leading into the residence, tried the handle. The door was locked. He knocked with care. Again. Again. A muffled voice within. He knocked louder. The voice was heard nearer. ‘You go ’vay. You cannot come in ’ere. You gif me troubles, I call p’liceman.’

  Prindy called, ‘Papa, papa!’

  Barbu spoke from the other side of the door: ‘O, permeshwar kia hai eder?’

  Prindy answered in Hindustani. A pause, then the turning of the key, pulling of the bolt. As the door opened, Prindy slipped in. Barbu grasped at him, let go at the feel of his dripping wetness, voiced a stream of Hindustani, to which Prindy replied in a mixture of languages. Barbu ran off, into another room, lit a lamp, came out with it, staring. Prindy asked, ‘Where Savitra?’ Barbu babbled about her having been taken from him and sent to the Mission Island. Prindy jerked his lips to the rear: ‘Who dere?’

  They were blacks hunted from the railways, said Barbu. Then he asked, ‘Apyahan kia ker rehey, ho?’

  Prindy gave only a slight explanation of his presence. But Barbu wailed, ‘Ho . . . again you haf runned away.’ He went on to babble about having made a promise to Mick Cusky, who evidently had dropped in while passing recently, not to report Prindy’s escapade, but to threaten Barbu that should he ever harbour the boy again he would go straight to jail. ‘Ten year jail, he say!’ cried Barbu. ‘If you efer come, moost pe I tell p’liceman at vonce . . . at vonce. Oh, maiyahan kia karna hay. Kakah, kakah!’

  Barbu stared at the boy, then asked, ‘You haf eat food?’ Prindy nodded. ‘All right . . . I moost tek you to p’liceman . . .’

  Prindy cried, ‘Eh, look-out!’

  ‘It iss on’y vay, Kakah. They vill come get you . . . and ve both jail go. Soon ve vill free you. I talk vit your Grandfader. He vill court-fight for you. But now moost you come. I vill get umprella and torch-light.’ Barbu went off with the lamp, through to an inner room.

  Prindy stayed for only a moment, then swung to the back door, opened it quietly, slipped out again, went back the way he’d come. It was a couple of minutes before Barbu reappeared. He stopped, to stare, flashing his light about the small room. The door was ajar. He went to it, flashed the light here and there. He muttered to himself. Then, setting one umbrella against the wall, he raised the other, went squelching out to the coach-house, flashed his light in there, to reveal a packed mass of what looked like grey-faced ghosts with glistening eyes, of all sizes, but none with fair hair. A tiny fire burnt in one corner. Barbu said, ‘You careful vit fire . . . or you burney house down.’ He turned back to the house, flashing to right and left. For a short while he stood on the back verandah making a moaning sound. Then he went inside, shut, locked, bolted the back door. As he entered the lighted room it could be seen that his thin black face was not only wet with rain. He bowed his head, croaked, ‘Mata Shakti . . . ney mera puttah rakh lia . . . It is a cruel vorld!’ Sobs shook him as he stood, bowed, leaning on his two umbrellas.

  Crossing the railway tracks again, Prindy looked back several times, as if watching for the flashlight. Back there was only the dimmest glow from the lamp shining through the shop window. He looked back for the last time as he entered the engine house. He entered carefully, hugging the wall to avoid the ash-pit. It was warm in there with the engine. The contrast with his own wetness made him shiver. He went up past the tender, to stop just beyond the cab, where it was warmest. The comfort was somewhat spoilt by the fact that the corrugated iron walls didn’t come right down to meet the cinder floor, which was sodden with the rain beating in. It took him some time to make bold to improve his condition in the simple way available, and then probably was driven to it only by exhaustion. He climbed up into the cab, stood there for a while hesitant in the darker darkness, then got down on the warm steel floor, at first to squat facing the unseen firebox door radiating its comfort, till the steam was rising from the front of him, then to lie down with a sigh, turn his soaked back to it, fall asleep.

  He woke several times during the roaring night, peed out over the steps, found the tap in the water-tank in the tender and drank, found driver’s and fireman’s seats and sat in them. Added now to the drum and rush of the rain was the booming of the rising racing river. Prindy cocked his ear towards it. He found that the leather cushions on the seats were detatchable, removed them and put them on the floor to make a bed, lay down again, slept soundly.

  He woke on hearing voices, found it was grey dawn, was instantly on his feet, listening. Still the rain was roaring down. He caught a glimpse of a shiny sou’wester at the steps on the left-hand side, and leapt to the right, shot out and down so smartly that Pat Hannaford, climbing the other steps, was aware of his presence there only through stumbling over the cushions. He turned sluggish steam into the dynamo, lit the cab dimly, said, ‘Poor little bastard must’a’ camped here. Wonder where he is?’ He looked out the other side. Coming back, he said to Porky opening the firebox, ‘Keep your eye open for him. If he’s round about before we hook her up, we’ll grab him.’

  When at length the engine came rolling slowly from its shed, Prindy saw the crew looking out for him as he sat crouched behind the batten doors of the shed used for storing tarpaulins and other gear. It should have occurred to Pat as a likely place to find him, since he himself had torn the padlock off the door to get at those tarps he had taken the liberty of ripping up and distributing last night to the homeless. But although Pat stared at it in passing, it was probably only with last night in mind, because he turned to Porky and grinned, as if in anticipation of the row it would cause and the powerful defence he had to meet it.

  The engine disappeared into the rain. The train was only dimly to be seen. Prindy drew back to the stacked tarpaulins and stretched put on them, staring at the lean-to roof, so close to him that it must have seemed to be pressing down on him with the hammering weight of rain. He dozed again — waiting for what? The rain to stop, the train to go, for Mother Shasti or Koonapippi or Old Tchamala or Bobwirridirridi to come? What of his Grandfather Jeremy, to whom he had a sodden letter in his shirt pocket? He woke when the bell at the station clanged All Aboard. Then the engine whistled: Boo-hoot!

  The train had not been gone more than five minutes when Prindy again was roused to sudden alertness by voices. He leapt to the batten doors, only to draw back instantly amongst the tarpaulins and hanging ropes and chains. Almost at the door he had seen f
our oilskinned figures. Now he saw them stop at the door, drag it open and examine the damage done to it. They were Col Collings, Oz Burrows, Constable Stunke, and Tracker Treacle, all shouting above the rain, except the last.

  ‘We got the bastard now,’ shouted Collings.

  ‘Case o’ breakin’ and enterin’, all right,’ was Stunke’s comment.

  ‘Destroyin’ Railway property,’ yelled Oz. ‘He can’t get away with that, can he?’

  Nevertheless, apparently they hadn’t dared charge Pat before he took the train away. Prindy was cringing down into a small gap in between tarps.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to give me an exact list of what’s been removed,’ Stunke bawled. ‘No good just sayin’ he removed tarpaulins.’

  ‘I know ’ow many was there,’ cried Oz. ‘I got ’em in me book. I’ll count what’s left.’

  They were coming in. Oz saw Prindy first, started, exclaimed, ‘Eh!’

  Prindy leapt up and shot through them. Treacle grabbed him by the back of his khaki shirt, pulled him down. Prindy landed face down in the cinders, but on the instant jerked out of the shirt. Stunke roared, ‘It’s that bloody kid again . . . stop him . . . chrissake don’t let him get away!’

  But Prindy was off like the prindy he was by Dreaming, heading for the river. All went after him, but without a hope, hampered as they were with their heavy clothing and lacking his natural speed. Besides, there was the mighty yellow snake of the river, almost filling the huge bed, bending the great trees with its might, heaving out of greyness into greyness. They saw him leap into it, strike through the bit of swirling debris-cluttered backwater at the edge, enter the current, go bobbing on it like a bit of rubbish, vanish into the rain.

  Collings yelled, ‘Mad little bastard’ll get drowned!’

  Stunke bellowed, ‘Not him, the slippery bloody little pest. We’ll have to get the boat out. Have to send word he’s got away again, too. He’s supposed to be down the Centre, according to McCusky. God bugger it . . . just what’d happen in weather like this!’

  Prindy’s dabbling in other cults of late had evidently not denied him the patronage he might expect from the Old One, of whose power, of course, the raging river was only a manifestation. He had little difficulty in crossing, although he was carried so far downstream in the process as to be put to a long trudge back northward and thereby to difficulty, to get out of which he could count on nothing but his own resourcefulness. Down river there were the old White Russian farms, most of them with some sort of shelter offering and easily got provender in the form of wild-growing peanuts, sweet potatoes, and exotic fruits. But he had been caught there before, and certainly would be again if he stayed. It was the delay in doubling back that landed him in further trouble, because it gave time to organise pursuit to those who were bent on denying him that thing most precious to him, his complete freedom.

  The boat Stunke had referred to was one belonging to Vaiseys kept for general use in time of flood. Stunke sent Oz and Mick Bolan, Railway Pumper and member of the fettling gang, off in the boat, while he got Tom Toohey, looking unhappy about it, to take himself and Treacle across the railway bridge on his trolley and set them down at the Racecourse, where the police horses were paddocked and at the moment stabled.

  Prindy saw the boat pass him, but would hardly know who the oilskinned crew were, dim as everything looked through the rain, and hardly consider duplication of pursuit, which was probably what caused him to use the road for its easier walking, although the risk of leaving tracks in the circumstances was minimal. Still, it was his unusual carelessness about leaving tracks that undid all the ease he had had so far. He was sharp enough to see the mounted policemen without their seeing him. Probably he first heard them, since the gusty wind was blowing with them. They were trotting down the road, watching the river. He, round a bit of a bend and out of their line of sight, at once ducked down and dodged away to the left into the thick stunted timber there that was regrowth of what was constantly being cut down to serve the Race Meetings. He kept to the bush for a while, then returned to the road, to run now, head down to the rain.

  Thus to the railway and over it, and onto the Racecourse, through to that stretch of well-made gravel road leading to Beatrice Homestead’s private causeway and the road to Lily Lagoons. He had it so easy now that he slowed down. While he was doing so, Constable Stunke, who was back at the Racecourse, having galloped back with Treacle after the latter’s discovery of a couple of small oozing footprints, was speaking on the telephone to Beatrice Homestead. The Family were in Town, as usual at this time of year. The place was in the charge of the Second Bookkeeper. Lesser lights were the Head Stockman and the so-called Engineer, the man who superintended mechanical jobs.

  Prindy had just left the gravel road as it swung down to the submerged causeway, and was walking the road to the Lagoons, when suddenly ahead of him, bursting out of the light timber on the river side, he saw two other oilskinned horsemen, easily recognisable as another pair by the colour of their horses, a chestnut and a white, the latter looking creamy with the yellow water of the river still streaming from its hide. They spurred after him as he leapt off the road, again to the left. And there on his left now, bursting into the scrub from the road behind, probably having sneaked up on him, were the policemen. In his surprise he collided with a small tree, fell sprawling in black ooze. ‘Got him!’ shouted Stunke, leaping from his saddle. ‘Bring the chain!’ The other two horsemen were halted together some twenty feet away. Treacle was turned away unbuckling his saddle-bag. No one stood between Prindy and the road he had come from — and the river. As Stunke, squelching in his water-logged riding boots, lunged to grab him, he leapt to his feet and raced for beckoning liberty.

  Stunke collided with the same tree, yelling obscenities, calling on the others, ‘After him . . . ride the little bastard down!’

  The two station horsemen swung into action too readily, so that one of their mounts, the white, slithered onto his rump, spilling his rider, the Second Bookkeeper, and put the other off his purpose long enough to lose the quarry.

  So fast did Prindy run down the steep river bank that he fell into the water, which here was racing wildly right against the bank because of a sharp curve. He went under, vanished as if pulled down, came up to be swept diagonally to the other side and then into a slowly swirling backwater packed with debris, welded with yellow froth. There was no getting out of here easily, even though the bank was not so steep as on the other side, the trouble being that here, at this level, it was undermined, the earth having been scoured from under biggish trees. Anyway, why want to get out, when there was hiding here, even if it must be shared with a myriad other homeless ones?

  There were ants, spiders, caterpillars, centipedes and millepedes, grasshoppers, mantises, biggish lizards and tiny ones, beetles and bugs, prey of each other normally, but now indifferent to anything but the common doom, crawling over each other in masses rolling to their changing weights, enemy clinging to enemy in extremes of helplessness — children of superogative Nature, proliferated for the fun of it, now being exterminated in the same ruthless game. There were tiny marsupial mice, one with babies big as peas clinging dead to its pouch. There was a small bandicoot swimming in mad circles. Prindy, grabbing a root, reached for him, perhaps to succour him by lifting him up to temporary safety, but only to make him dive and never come up again. Prindy climbed up amongst the roots. It was warm in here, with the warmth of the earth, compared with the chill of the rushing river. It was quiet, too, with the external watery uproar sounding like that of the sea to be heard in a shell. A cosy place for a runaway; but a death-trap for any creature not able to take cognisance of the rising water. At length the doomed creatures were raised to the roots and began to overrun them. Prindy slipped out, coasted along in the slime, came after only twenty feet or so upon the big iron pipe through which water normally was pumped from the river to Beatrice Homestead. It was easy climbing here. He climbed up into the chilly rain, reached th
e silent pump-house on the flat above, to stand, shivering now, taking stock of things from behind it. Nothing to be seen through the grey rain sheeting in the wind, except a bit of fencing. He went to the fence, which ran parallel with the river, not to go through it, but to turn northward and trot splashing along the thin yellow rivulet that was the bridle pad following it. Now above the dull thunder of the river could be heard the shrill hallelujah chorus of the frogs.

  Not far away inside that fence was the road that ran to Catfish, as he would know, and as he showed by his frequent glances towards it and backwards along it. He passed several other fences running away towards the invisible road, must have trotted the best part of two miles before he came to the end of the fence. The heavy posts and rails of the grid by which the road passed through the fence as it now ran eastward could be seen; and the pad swung that way; but Prindy kept straight on, even though the going now was rough. Evidently no more road-running for him. It was slow going now. Often he eased up and walked, ran evidently to keep warm. Frogs in thousands, great and small, fell silent about him as he passed, leapt splashing out of his way. He came to a creek that was spilling its banks, was forced to turn up it because of its midstream fury, but went into it waist-deep when he saw a substantial paperbark, and tore sheets from it till able to get a piece big enough to make a hood. It was at this creek that the road turned away from the river, northwestward, to avoid the swampy country beyond. But he was not concerned with the road, apparently. As soon as able to cross the creek he did so. Beyond it the din of the frogs was ear-splitting.

  Hunger was troubling him now, it was evident, from his stopping to turn over rotten wood and break it up, to extract here and there a grub and eat it. Coming into swamp, he had a feed of the corm of rushes before swinging round the area to avoid the probable impossibility of going straight through it. Always he came back northward when he could. The boom of the river was still in the background, but diminishing, to be replaced, apart from the louder-seeming shouting of the froggy legions, by a subtler watery sound, the chuckling of innumerable streamlets racing to become one with the great yellow snake raging roaring to the far-off sea. He splashed along, always ankle deep, sometimes down to the knees, sometimes to the waist and chest and having to hang on to tortured leaning trees for life. He soon lost his hood, walked with a waxy hand over eyes to peer ahead, into nothingness, just a hole in grey nothingness not much bigger than himself. Often he stopped and stood for respite behind trees, only to be fouled up by gobs of rank froth spat down from sodden trunks and branches. Time itself was a grey thing, getting greyer. The ground became a grey thing, a sheet of dirty water lashed into steam by rain. Water everywhere. No creeks now. Only one grey seething pulling mass. He floundered into holes, fell over submerged objects. It was swampland, grown with spindly tea-tree stuff that grew thicker, thicker, and allowed no way out. He came to moaning and whimpering with the effort it cost to go on, as he must go, or lie down and drown.